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I was only sixteen years old when I KNEW that the Catholic Church did not preach the gospel. On my own, I continued to attend Catholic Mass after my parents divorced but there had always been something I knew that didn't "sit right" with what I had been taught all my life up to then. Walking home from Mass one Sunday, I distinctly remember praying, "God, if you are real and if there is any such thing as truth, I want to know it.". Within a few months we were transferred back to the U.S. from where we were supposed to stay for another year and a half. We started going to a Southern Baptist church as a family since my grandparents went there. In a little Sunday school room, the teacher opened the Bible to John chapter ten and I read in verses 27-30 the following:

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:

And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.

I and my Father are one.

A light went on in my soul - what I now know was the Holy Spirit illuminating God's truth to my heart - and I understood that Jesus was speaking to me telling me that he GAVE me eternal life from which I would never perish, never to be plucked from his hands and that I could KNOW I had eternal life through faith in Him. I realized then and there that what I had been told all my life by the Catholic Church about going to heaven was NOT the truth and I also KNEW that I had no desire to go back to it. I certainly had the freedom to if I wanted, but I did not want to. Everything since then that I have learned about the Catholic religion only reinforces that I made the right decision.

When anyone wants to know "why do Catholics leave", my answer is that some realize the truth of the Gospel - the real Gospel - and returning back to Catholicism is unthinkable. I have never regretted my decision and my walk with Christ only grows stronger the more I live for and learn of Him.